How to Best Leverage Your Strengths and Natural Abilities

Do you ever get bogged down in the day-to-day?  You might be putting out fires, solving problems, leading your team, and anything else that pops up. When your company first began, you were likely the person needed for every decision and problem. Then your business grew. You have a team and more resources.

However, you might still be operating like you did when you were a startup, which won’t allow your business to predictably scale. You can influence your organization’s growth by focusing on your own strengths and natural abilities.

3 Parts of the Mind

It has long been understood that there are three ways we show up in the world:

1. Cognitive (Thinking)
2. Affective (Feeling)
3. Conative (Doing)

Our natural tendencies in each of these parts of the mind drive our behavior and what we choose to focus on. Because we can get bogged down in the daily issues, it’s important to step back and evaluate where we are spending our time. This practice allows us to stay aligned to our roles and strengths, which means we’re getting the right work done well.

Determining Your Strengths

By staying in alignment with your strengths and natural abilities, you ensure you’re doing the best work to grow your organization. To do this, first you need to be aware of what your strengths and natural abilities are. You could likely guess. You know where you’re mostly proficient and what you enjoy. But guessing will only get you as far as you’re self-aware. There are tools and strategies available to help you use your strengths in each of the three parts of your mind.

Thinking

Many of your actions begin with your thoughts and mindset. Understanding where you are strong mentally is key to maximizing your potential and leadership. An assessment that analyzes your thinking and we find most helpful is the CliftonStrengths 34. You’ll learn whether you’re naturally an innovator or relationship builder. Maybe you love taking on a big project or prefer working when connected with others. Your thinking patterns, motivations, and blind spots are explained for each of your top five strengths.

Feeling

Many of your actions also begin with your emotions. And emotions are driven by our motivations and worldview. One of the assessments we use with our entire team is the Enneagram iEQ9 from the Enneagram Institute. The Enneagram consists of 9 numbers or archetypes, and it is all about helping you discover the motivations behind why you function the way you do. You’ll learn your archetype and which other archetypes may influence your feelings and motivations. This self-awareness is incredibly valuable if you’re seeking self-improvement.

Doing

How we act and solve problems is also affected by our strengths. Being aware of how you take action can help you determine whether you’re the best person for any given project or task. The assessment we use with our entire team is the Kolbe A. There are four action centers: Fact Finder, Follow Thru, Quick Start, and Implementor. Based on your answers, you are given a number in each of those categories. Whether it is lower or higher determines how you prefer to take action. This information can be especially valuable when you’re deciding the best use of your time and energy to run your organization.

The Benefits

Being aware of how you show up in the three parts of your mind will give you a deeper understanding of yourself and others. It can take away the guess work that comes to solving problems and making decisions. You’ll be able to prioritize the work you love and do best and grow your business at the same time—without working overtime.

You can also take this information a step further and use these assessments with your team, which changes the game for delegating work and aligning the right people with the right roles or projects.

If you haven’t already, we recommend starting with any one of these assessments. Increasing your self-awareness can improve the ways you show up for yourself, others, and your organization.

Would like to dive into this topic, but need more space and support? I’ll be facilitating a two-day workshop on this topic in March as part of our group business coaching program, The Scaling Leader. In April and October, I’ll lead a one-day virtual event for teams. Outsource your own development, and/or that of your team, to us by attending these sessions. To learn more, check out The Scaling Leader program here.